Stop Spending Time With Jesus.

It has been a long time since I spent much time on God, or Jesus, or the Word, or anything of eternal value really. I rarely open my Bible, because between family and running a business, and other time consuming things… like Facebook…cough… I just have not had the time to spend on these types of things.

I am done spending time with God.

I done spending time in His Word.

I am done spending time with Jesus.

I am done.

What I mean is, I am done thinking of time with God as an expense. So, I am done spending time with Jesus.  Viewing it as a “have to”, instead of a “get to” just adds more stress to an already stressful life. We do well to view time with Jesus as a gift, and as an investment.

The Bible, which I am guilty of not opening very often by myself, is very clear about the time we invest in the Lord. It is here in these times with Jesus, that we can unload our burdens upon him.  Phillippians 4 says:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God,which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I don’t know about you, but the level of anxiety and stress in my life, is inversely proportional to the amount of time I invest in my relationship with Jesus. So that, the more time I am with Jesus in His word, and in prayer, the less I stress about stupid things. I also tend to find the proper perspective on life, things that seem important I find really are not all that important.

How is it, that when I was in the midst of a battle with Cancer, that I was the most calm and stress free I’ve ever been?   I think it has to do with the fact that much of my time was spent invested in that relationship with Jesus.  It was there in that place of facing my mortality that I found the greatest peace which is mentioned in that famous verse I quoted above.

And its not just stress release.  Stress is big right now for me, since business is slow, so that is foremost on my mind.  Jesus gives us perspective on the truly important.  Investing time with him makes us thankful for what we do have, rather than focusing on what we don’t.  Time we give to him actually saves us time.  We stop dwelling on the hurt that others caused us, we stop dwelling on what ifs, we stop worrying about the future.  When we invest time with Jesus, we discover that we actually have more time.

How can this be?

Well Jesus tells us, in Matthew 11:28-30:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

You see when we believe on Jesus, he lifts the heavy burden of sin off of us.  That includes the sins of worry, and stress, amongst all the rest of our time wasting sins…and he places his light yoke upon us. But he doesn’t just put that yoke on us and leave us to carry it alone, rather he gets into it and carries it for us! He is right there.  Beside you.  Talk to him. You don’t need to carry that weight anymore…

Thats amazing isnt it?  Jesus carries our burdens.  When he carries my anxiety, my worry and stress, that will free me up to stop wasting time with those things!

And the great thing is that Jesus wants me talk to him.

SO.  Will you join me?  Stop Spending time with Jesus.  Let’s start investing it.